UFC Veteran Din Thomas was arrested yesterday in Port St. Lucie, Florida for holding illegal MMA competitions at his gym.
According to the police arrest warrant, Thomas was holding MMA fights in a cage and charging $10 per person for the 150 or so in attendance. According to the police report, Thomas stated that they fighters were just students from his American Top Team academy and the spectators were mostly family and friends. Din stated that he was holding the fights to get his students used to fighting in front of crowds and that they were only sparring the same way they would during a class.
The police didn’t seem to agree and arrested Thomas for holding illegal sporting competitions without a license.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Din Thomas, almost a legend in the ultimate fighting world, was arrested Tuesday after police say he ran “illegal cage fighting” matches at a local training studio that he runs, a police spokesman said.
Din ThomasThomas, 31, faces a felony prohibited competitions charge after police got a tip Oct. 19 about the matches at a facility he uses in St. Lucie West.
Inside, they observed two men fighting in an octagon-shaped ring surrounded by about 150 spectators. The fights reportedly weren’t sanctioned.
The state Boxing Commission, which is part of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, licenses and regulates professional boxing and mixed martial arts in Florida, DBPR spokesman Sam Farkas said.
Amateur boxing matches are regulated and licensed by a sanctioning committee that’s approved by the boxing commission, but no mixed martial arts fights are allowed at the amateur level.
“At the end of the day, he was having a professional mixed martial arts match that was not licensed through us,” Farkas said. “It was a case of unlicensed activity.”
Thomas is well known in the world of ultimate fighting, commonly known as mixed martial arts, a brutal combination of boxing, kickboxing and wrestling in a boxing ring or cage. The fighting is so intense that most fights are limited to three five-minute rounds.
Thomas, who lost last month to Kenny Florian in an Ultimate Fighting Championship match televised live on Spike TV, has a gym on South U.S. 1 near Port St. Lucie Boulevard. It’s named American Top Team Port St. Lucie (ATTPSL) because of an affiliation with American Top Team, a national organization with franchises across the country.
A Delaware native, Thomas was 12 when he moved with his family to Port St. Lucie, graduating from Port St. Lucie High School in 1994.
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Tags: UFC, MMA, Din Thomas
(via MMA HQ - Mixed Martial Arts News and Analysis)